This article appears in the Winter 2018 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here . Canada, the United States, and Mexico are deep into the renegotiation of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. These talks were precipitated by President Trump, who promised as a candidate to tear up “the worst trade deal ever.” Neither Canada nor Mexico sought to reopen NAFTA. Progressives, particularly those of us who fought NAFTA 1.0 for being a tool for corporate interests, find ourselves somewhat caught. Labor, environmental, and social justice groups obviously do not side with the narrow and xenophobic nationalism of Donald Trump. But we welcome the opportunity for open debate on a disastrous trade deal as a way to either fix it or tear it up and start over. NAFTA accelerated the creation of a precariat in North America, as well as a dramatic increase in wealth inequality, wage stagnation, the hollowing out of the middle class and the weakening of the social...

Women and children in Bhopal, India wait in a line for drinking water.(AP Photo/str)

Three scenarios collude toward disaster. Scenario one: The world is running out of freshwater. It is not just a question of finding the money to hook up the 2 billion people living in water-stressed regions of our world. Humanity is polluting, diverting, and depleting the Earth's finite water resources at a dangerous and steadily increasing rate. The abuse and displacement of water is the ground-level equivalent of greenhouse-gas emissions and likely as great a cause of climate change. Scenario two: Every day more and more people are living without access to clean water. As the ecological crisis deepens, so too does the human crisis. More children are killed by dirty water than by war, malaria, HIV/AIDS, and traffic accidents combined. The global water crisis has become a powerful symbol of the growing inequality in our world. While the wealthy enjoy boutique water at any time, millions of poor people have access only to contaminated water from local rivers and wells. Scenario three:...